AMA: Cisco Meraki Head of Product Marketing, Grant Shirk on Product Marketing KPIs

Time for some radical transparency. I'm in the midst of this right now. Tomorrow is my 30-day milestone at Cisco Meraki. It's been an awesome first four weeks, and I'm really looking forward to what's next. (Shameless pitch - we're hiring, too!) The size of the company and team adds a layer of complexity here, but in general, this is your best chance to really focus on learning your customer, product, and market here. It's hard to go back and do this again, especially in growth mode, so don't throw this away! Also, don't limit yourself to 90 days. I like framing this as a "First 100 Days." It sounds more presidential and breaks you out of the calendar a bit. First 4 weeks: Product, Team and Market - Learn everything you can about the product, what's in flight, and what competitors are doing overall - Read research, talk to sales, get demo-ready if you can - Exit mindset: "I understand what we do, and for whom, and how we're doing it today." Mid-term 4-5 weeks: Customers and Message - Now you're getting into it. Meet with as many customers and prospects as possible - Build your point of view on the message, the gaps, and what needs fixing - Data, data, data. Now that you have context on the business, the numbers will make more sense - Exit mindset: "I believe I know what we should do next, and what the big problems are." Closing 4 weeks: Start your Execution - By now, you've got a sense of problems and plan - Dig in and start doing. Pick priorities carefully, and line them up with near-term company objectives - Ideally, have 1 early win under your belt, and 2-3 more on the horizon - Exit mindset: "Follow me - here's where we're going to go, and how we're going to get there. Finally, don't lose sight of key wins you can deliver. These are great ways to contribute, build trust, and start working towards that bigger impact. Starting in Month 2, can you: * Get a "big topic" on the blog * Contribute an article to PR for publication at a third party * Speak on a webinar or customer event * Refresh the EBC/Exec deck * Fix a broken or inefficient process * Update an unloved or overlooked part of your site

Aim high, and ask for more than you think you'll need - but not by more than 15-20%. People will always be your biggest budget line item in PMM - we're the most valuable asset because structured thinking and positioning can't really be outsourced or delegated to software. However, key items that I would examine for fit in your budget: * Content creation for top-of-funnel assets, separate from Content Marketing * Video production (think $5-10K for an animated explainer video) to fill in gaps in your content * Competitive and market survey data. Plan ahead to learn more about your customers Sales Enablement: Can you co-fund sales training and methodology off-cycle from SKO?

This idea of cross-functional KPIs is core to what makes PMM the most interesting and the most challenging function to quantify. But, you can do it! Two things I believe strongly: * Cross-functional (or shared) KPIs are the most powerful KPIs any business or team can measure, because they're qualitative and quantitative and they force alignment across teams. * Product Marketing exists to amplify the impact of other teams. If you don't have shared metrics, you're probably amplifying only yourself, and missing the chance to deliver on your true objectives. The best example of a cross-functional metric with product (and sales) is Qualified Pipeline creation. We'll talk more about that in a minute, but it's powerful because it's qualitative, quantitative, and aligned to what the org cares about: growth. Quant = pipeline $ (and avg. deal size); Qualitative = "qualified" means that multiple people have looked at it, measured it, accepted it, and are accountable to it. To get here, whether you have a product-led or sales-led go-to-market is work with these other teams to understand what are their key initiatives and measurements on a quarterly and annual basis. From there, drive metrics around where the "handoff" is between teams. For Product-PMM alignment, this can be Free Trial conversions. Quant = how many? Qual = conversion to paid. In a sales-led motion, this should be either Pipeline creation or Opp creation, depending on the duration of your sales cycle. Product launches are just one part of what PMM really delivers, but it's a high profile one. My best advice here is to link your point-in-time launch metrics to these longer-term shared KPIs. For example: * Net increase in activity around products and launch activity * Enrollment in high-conversion funnel activities like training, certification, or beta programs * Net new opportunity creation, or new meetings set with sales

Well, to quote Rush, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." I would say the worst thing you can do is not commit to something. Pick one and roll with it - you can always adjust if it doesn't fit the business. Owning a number is the best way to establish leadership and priorities. The worst are metrics that don't directly lead to revenue. "Site traffic, asset downloads, content creation, the PMM seeks not these things." Find the outputs that align with your key GTM partners in the company, and drive those.

Going to take my time with this one, as I think it combines a number of the other topics, but it's also critical, because PMM often sits at the center of all these things. * Product launches are a big tentpole event in the lifecycle of a company and a product. Done right, they should drive traffic, leads, and opportunity creation (awareness, demand gen, and pipeline). * These are massive, coordinated efforts, but they're also not a point in time. No single day or event should make or break the future of a business. It's certainly a major note in the story, but not even the only crescendo. I coach my teams (and other execs) to think of product launches as the conclusion of a chapter or phase, and not the starting point. This solves for several problems. By the time you get to a launch, it should be almost a foregone conclusion to your customers, with the delighters in the annoucement taking center stage (the special or unexpected). You should have programs and campaigns pre-wired to carry it forward. Sales should be prepped and ready to go and carry the message forward. And you should probaly hat-tip your next move in the copy somewhere. So, around a launch, you're really measuring three things: * Short-term awareness. Views, reads, time on site, all relative to the prior comparable period * Medium-term engagement. Downloads, trials, attendance at that webinar, customer meetings * Long-term value. New opportunity creation, Qualified Pipeline, Average Deal Size

One, I have never met two PMMs who came to product marketing through the same path; and two, the metrics you care most about are deeply influenced by your product, market, and customer. The short version is I fell into it, and then fell in love with it. The longer version: I started my career in user experience design, back when the Nokia 6100 was the coolest thing on the market (and definitely the best phone for Snake). We were designing apps and OS software for mobile phones, and way ahead of our time. In fact, while we weren't successful as a company, the software we built powered the first 5GB iPod with the physical scroll wheel. I still have one that has our logo in the "credits page." From there, I moved to Tellme Networks, where I was designing voice applications for speech IVR - think 1-800-GOFEDEX, Fandango, Fidelity, you name it. I caught the enterprise software bug there. I really just loved getting to moonlight in the world of our customers' business problems, and this sparked my curiosity into how companies made decisions overall. So I did the next obvious thing and followed a mentor into strategic planning and finance. Natural, right? Through an acquisition by Microsoft and a big project with Domino's Pizza, I "fell" into vertical and enterprise product marketing and never looked back. The mix of technology, business problems, seeking hard ROI, and working with sales still gets me excited about what my team and I get to do every day. On advice for breaking in - talk to people in the role already. I've never met a successful PMM who didn't want to help others. Customers, colleagues, new hires, you name it. Pull back the metrics and the process, and at the core of what we do is help people solve hard problems by applying know-how, technology, and a bit of creativity. Shoot me a DM on Linkedin or Twitter - would love to talk more.

I am a huge proponent of shared KPIs. Like Product Managers, Product Marketers often have to work through and influence other teams in order to reach their goals -- and, more aspirationally, to help their customers reach their goals. Shared metrics have superpowers. They drive alignment, accountability, and accuracy overall. They're quantitative and qualitative. Bit of a broken record here, but I really like Qualified Pipeline Generation ($), Average Deal Size, and Meetings Set/Opportunity creation. Other great shared metrics can be Trials Created/Converted, Win Rates, New Customer/Segment acquisition. New Product Introduction is a great time to dig in on shared metrics, too. Not just pipeline and influence, but Attach Rates (% or Count of current customers adopting the new product or service. The counter example to this is the MQL. This is my least favorite marketing metric of all time. It's 100% subjective (what magic score means "qualified?". It's 100% internal (owned, managed, and measured my marketing, usually inside a marketing specific tool like Marketo). And it changes over time.

There are two questions buried in here. If you are truly in a situation where your leadership doesn't understand the impact of Product Marketing, are you in the right position? Product Marketing is challenging enough when you have buy-in and support from your leaders. I'd question why this is happening - perhaps you need to do some education around what is and what is not PMM. I can answer this one best from an enterprise/B2B point of view. At the end of the day, the role of PMM in a B2B sales motion is threefold: deliver "higher quality" or more informed leads into the pipeline, accelerate the sales cycle, and increase average deal size. That maps to three critical (and shared) metrics to really show both immediate impact and long-term strategic value: 1. Meetings Set. Whether you call these SAOs, opportunities created, or just sales-accepted meetings, this is a critical leading indicator of PMM fit. Basically, are you getting more educated leads to the point of sale, and is sales accepting them? More at bats = more opportunities to sell, and more chances to learn. 2. Pipeline Generated. Own this number above all else. How much net new or incremental opportunity are PMM programs driving into sales. Allows you to measure contribution, but also effectiveness. How much coverage do you need to hit the number? How well do those opps convert? 3. Average Deal Size. This is related to Pipe Generation, and plays out over a longer period, but this is the sales metric that PMM can have the biggest impact on over time. Pricing, packaging, new product introduction, sales enablement, and positioning. Ask yourself: what milestones can we hit if we increase deal sizes by 15%? By 50%?

First and foremost, don't commit to any metrics until you really understand the current customer, buying cycle, and GTM approach, and have a point of view on what needs to change. I'm making a few assumptions here that as a "first in" you're further along on your career journey and have a sense of where to start. (If that's not the case, quickly find someone through your VC who can provide some advice here relevant to your problem! First PMM problems are often more qualitative. Who's the real customer? How do we get to her? Why does she care about the problem we solve and our unique solution? But, there's always a way to measure impact of that. Some thoughts here, broken down by the usual "how do you capture revenue?" framework: * Product-led growth: Trials started, Trials converted, Average Deal Size. The first two are straightforward (and shared with Demand), but critical to see "who's buying" and if they match your theoretical ideal customer profile. Average Deal size links to the PMM objective of increasing the value you capture from every customer. * Sales-led growth: Demo requests, New Meetings Set, Opps Created. You're trying to learn who is interested, who takes action, and who you ultimately need to qualify into. These will tell you that pretty quickly (and if you have a disconnect in your path from consideration to sale). Importantly, all these metrics will help YOU improve messaging and positioning. You're learning quickly who is engaging, who you really want to engage with, and if you have any non-personas (targets to avoid) or hidden personas (people you really should be talking to) in the mix already.

This is related to that "first PMM" problem, but it's amplified as a leader. Product marketing at a startup needs to drive the conversation about who you're marketing to, why they care, and how you're unique, but you have to do that quickly and show some early wins. If you're stepping in to help amplify the work of an existing team, there are probably some objectives you're going to inherit. Job 1 is to understand better than everyone else how those are measured and where the data comes from. No data is perfect, but consistency matters the most at this stage. "Pre-IPO" is a loaded term. But, even just simplifying this down to "privately held," you have growth metrics that someone is looking at. Your goal is to improve growth. Establish whether you can accelerate growth faster through: * Accelerating pipeline creation (find more deals), * Improving conversion rates through sales (win more deals), or * Increasing average deal size (make deals more valuable) We haven't talked about the third much, but I think this is one of the most overlooked (and most critical) areas of impact PMM can have. It's incredibly rewarding and fun to work with sales and customers directly to find out how to show the true value of your product, and turn that into bigger lands. Robin Daniels, a good friend, mentor, and the CMO over at Matterport always likes to say "be Sales' best friend." Increasing their paycheck on every deal? Great place to start.

This is what makes PMM so fun. And also a little chaotic. You're frequently context-shifting between strategic investments (a 12- to 18-month horizon), quarterly operational work (those "big rocks" and Tier 1 launches), and the daily/weekly/monthly execution below the scenes. And then a competitor (or new entrant) does something you have to react to. Engage competitive skillsets! I've found the best way to manage through this is through a few tools: 1. Clearly establish what your high-impact priorities are. And then communicate them until you're blue in the face and sick of hearing about them yourself. 2. Understand the relative value of any activity or impact in the scope of your GTM. For example, how valuable is a datasheet vs. a battlecard vs. a microsite or landing page. How much pipeline does it influence? How often are you hearing a given objection? 3. Declare clearly what "done" looks like. This approach can help take some of the heat off of firedrills and help put requests into perspective. To evaluate this, I still really like the Important vs. Urgent framework (also known as the Eisenhower Matrix ). There's always a priority shift between urgent and important tasks. What you can do is understand which a task is, and then how much time and effort you will put into it. Also, remember: PMM, messaging, positioning, copy, and even strategy are constantly evolving things. Allow for iteration. Many times, getting to "done" is way better than getting to "right." The only person who can really tell you if you're right is the customer, anway. 

Pulling this one up. It's outside the realm of KPIs and measurement, but I think it's really critical. And I have a few strong opinions here. If I can summarize this back, as part of your interview process, you were given an assignment to build an overall strategic plan to take a flagship product to market, do it under extreme time and emotional pressure, and summarize it all in a few hundred words. To put it bluntly, this is a terrible way to assess someone's skills, is antithetical to what we should expect of someone in the interview process, and really sounds like unpaid consulting work. How is anyone going to do a meaningful job of this if they don't spend hours and hours learning, thinking, and evaluating options? You have the right in an interview to challenge or shape the assignment. I personally will never ask a candidate to "do work on my behalf" or tackle a project where success is dependent on context and expertise. I want to see how people think. A better way to frame this is to ask a candidate to tackle maybe ONE of these items (how would you break down or improve our current persona work? Can you describe how you built the messaging for a recent launch you did?). If you do find yourself stuck in this situation and you're given a similar exercise with no flexibillity (for any reason - I acknowledge that sometimes it's hard to push back on these assignments), there are a few things you can do: * Define and manage the scope yourself. Not only time-box your own investment in the project, but document your assumptions. I love seeing this. One slide that says "to focus on what's important here, here are the assumptions I made." Hard to argue with that... you can focus on your thinking * Ask what is the criteria for evaluation. Once you know what the hiring manager is really looking for, focus on that. If it's a persona exercise, spend 80% of the time there. If it's positioning, learn the competition and focus on gaps. * Overdeliver on one thing. You can't cover it all, but figure out what you are best at and highlight that. Exercises when done well should be a showcase for what makes you great, not a way for the team to get free feedback and ideas on their own strategy. Be wary if that's the vibe you get.